System Update froze - UbuntuMATE 16-04

[Gene Heskett]

On Thursday 21 June 2018 13:37:53 Bret Busby wrote:

> On 22/06/2018, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 21 June 2018 at 16:46, Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> ...
> >> So, this "feature" that was apparently included in 16.04.2, in all
> >> of the circumstances, probably, instead of changing Ubuntu 16.04 to
> >> the status of Debian sid, appears to have turned Ubuntu 16.04 and
> >> 18.04, into the nature of Debian experimental, with all data at
> >> risk.
> >
> > It is the disc causing the update to hang, not the update causing
> > the disc problem.
> > It is almost certainly a faulty disk.  What happens if you unmount
> > it, or if you can't then just unplug it?
>
> How can a device be unmounted, if the software can not identify it?
>
> Without any usable system utilities to identify any device, and, no
> file operations available, it is a bit like diving into shallow
> rockpools from the top of a cliff, or, the famous test for voice
> controlled operating systems, where the member of the audience yelled
> out "Format C colon!".
>
> Simply unplugging a mounted USB device, destroys it, from experiential
> memory.
>
> And, it is not your data that is at risk.

Thats exactly why you make every effort of get the surviving data off 
that disk. Do you have sata ports open on that machine? Takeing USB out 
of the path is another recommendation, its not always perfect.
>
> Simply reacting like saying "oops", if hundreds of GB of data is
> destroyed, does not help.
>
Agreed, which is why we all recommend copying it off to a new drive. You 
may not get it all, but thats better than losing it all.  One thing has 
not been mentioned that I recall, is the existence of backups, and I 
can't recommend anything but amanda for that.

Complex to setup, yes, once setup, it Just Works(TM). I am currently 
backing up 6 machines here every night, and I can restore to any state 
that existed over the last 30 days, for any of those 6 machines.

And if the system can be rebuilt so as _not_ to be using a USB path to 
get from sata controller to sata disk, I'd highly recommend it.

-- 
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>